Tag Archives: Skook

Ever have one of those mornings when you just want to bitch and moan about everything? You don’t want to do this because you actually have any valid complaints; you just feel like complaining? And whining? And carrying on as if your petty little problems are the most important god damn things in the world?

Now try following through on that when the only other conscious beings around you at 5:45 a.m. are a cat and a sasquatch. The cat couldn’t care less what you have to say. She just wants to come in, get fed and head out again into the darkness. And the sasquatch has discovered tetris and has been playing it obsessively since you went to bed last night. He’s still at it on Nizzibet’s iMac. We’re probably going to have to get her a new keyboard. Those big sasquatch fingers can’t be gentle on the thing.

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I moved up here for the weather. For the variety of weather. We’ve been having entirely too much sun. Since I spend my work days in an office without windows and much of my mornings and evenings puttering in a basement I haven’t gotten to see the sun enough to appreciate it. The inefficient airconditioning at work also means that the sun’s heat becomes thicker and heavier in the building than outside. Rain plays percussion on the skylights over my desk; announcing its pressence with more energy than what seems to come from the sun.

Paliki is spending more time indoors. She’s not so fond of the rain.

Skook can be found snoozing the day away in his regular spot in the basement.

I’ll probably be switching back to hot coffee soon. For the last few months I been drinking it over ice or cool from the turned off pot.

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Skook watches me move stacks of books from one shelf to another. He doesn’t bother to try to get out of my way so I dodge around him the same way I’m stepping around the black plastic wrapped mattress, the portfolios and the miscellaneous boxes and bags that nest between the bookshelves.

We don’t bother discussing what I’m doing. We’ve had the discussion before and have agreed to disagree. Once in a while he’ll hold a stack of books while I shelve but it would a waste of time for me to try to have him help me actually do the shelving. In general, sasquatch love organizing things. In general, humans wouldn’t recognize sasquatch organization. It’s not like I’ve done a scientific study of this. Skook could be pulling my leg. He helped me organize our tools a few years ago. Rather, I asked him to organize the tools and then he helped me find them again so that I could re-organize them. And he said he was trying to keep his system simple for me.

It’s often asked by those who’ve never encountered a sasquatch – where’s the evidence? How could a huge animal remain undetected by science in the midst of the most sophisticated culture on the planet? According to Skook, one of the main reasons is that we (humans) don’t think like them (sasquatch). Sasquatch leave evidence of their existence all over the place. Skook has shown me artworks all over my neighborhood that were created by passing sasquatch. I never would have seen them myself. It’s not the sort of stuff that a human would create. A human would find a bunch of rocks laying around and stack them. Then he might sign his creation by scratching a symbol onto one of the rocks. A sasquatch would take the same rocks and rearrange them according to complex geometric and aesthetic patterns inspired by how they reflect light on a new moon. If she felt the need to sign the art she might pee on it. Or near it. Or she more likely she’d pee in a pattern that would be considered part of the art and not be thinking of leaving a signature at all. She would know that another sasquatch would recognize her scent on the rocks themselves.

Human culture is shaped by having evolved from small diurnal apes who lived in tribal bands. Sasquatch culture evolved in huge nocturnal apes who live mostly solitary lives. Sasquatch aren’t stupid. They’ve just not human. Nor do they have any interest in being human. (There are exceptions to every rule. Skook tells me stories. I’ll get to them eventually.)

I get new shelves set up for the MAH books. This gives me room to incorporate the three Bigfoot videos I’ve got as well as migrating over the larger books that didn’t fit on the previous set of shelves. I also get all the Lovecraft books on a single long shelf. There’s enough room that I toss in some Lovecraftian novels along with the Cthulhu Mythos stuff. I’m not really satisfied with the results of the move. Too many shelves in this block are still just random unorganized books. It’s an improvement over the last arrangement and the process of moving books around has given me ideas of other categories I’d like to set up.

Skook examines my handiwork. He shrugs at the MAH shelves. He looks at Lovecraft. He sniffs. He furors his brow. Then he takes The Dunwich Horror hardback and turns it upside down. He turns two of the role playing manuals around so the leaves are facing out. He scratches behind his ear and then taps the tops of The 37th Mandala and Darklost. He nods approvingly.

Sasquatch organization.

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Talking about organizing my library has had me actually looking at how to get that done properly. Part of the challenge is that a lot of the shelves aren’t designed to hold books taller than a book club hardback. That means that I have to think about not only what categories of books to put together but also whether or not all the books in that category will fit on the same shelf.

I’ve currently got three categories actually arranged. Over on the west wall, on the right side I’ve got the animal section. That’s pretty much every book on animals from field guides on western birds (do I really have one of those?) to coffee table books of fossils. On the left side I’ve got a Lovecraft section. That’s a mix of old beaten paperbacks, an occasionally nice hardback and RPG gaming manuals. No standard size for either of those sections.

The third category is over on the north wall. The MAH section – Mystery Apes and Hominids – is split between fiction and fact. I’ve got a nice selection of Bigfoot and yeti books with an occasional volume of general mysterious phenomena. Most of those books are from the seventies and eighties. That’s followed by a collection of MAH novels. Some books feature Bigfoot, some yetis, others featuring more obscure critters. It’s one of the few sections down here that I’ve got alphabetized.

As I look around I can see a place where the MAH section would better fit. Not all of my MAH books are shelved on the north wall. I’ve still got a few scattered around because they are too tall for those shelves. But if I move the MAH and the Lovecraft books over to the shelves around the furnace they should all fit with room to expand the collections.

I guess I have a project for tonight while Nizzabet is off saving souls. This should be fun.

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Nizzabet. – enthusiasm unbound, sunshine wrapped in silliness. We spent six years arguing about what sort of wedding to have and finally compromised and had two. Haven’t really had an argument since. Occasionally she’s possessed by the Dark Demon of Doom and Despair. She’s a tad less perky then. I’ve learned to live with it. It hardly outweighs her brightness.

Jaydogg – Nizzabet’s business partner. He’s not much of talker. One of the best housemates I’ve ever had and that’s saying a lot. He doesn’t let a dish stay dirty for longer than an hour or a surface stay undusted for more than a week. Fortunately he and Felix Unger have little else in common.

2M – She and Jaydogg aren’t going out. They don’t have a relationship and she doesn’t live here. Just ask him. She just rolls her eyes. Sometimes she’s accompanied by Lil’ M, her brilliant and dangerous daughter. Lil’ M needs no

Skook – he came with the place. Why he chooses the basement over the garage is beyond me. He can’t stand up down here. It can’t be much warmer than the garage even in the winter. He’s laughing when he’s not sleeping.

Paliki – Pa-thetic Li-ttle Ki-tty. Hard to believe that she’s over ten year old now. She’s gotten stockier and maybe a little calmer but she still manages to be bafflingly annoying sometimes.

Me – I’ll lie for my own amusement. I was called weird for so long that it became a compliment. I’m tall and blonde and cheerful and occasionally modest.

Nizzabet and Jason have offices upstairs. I’ve got a library down here in the basement. We guesstimate about a four thousand books and videos. Way more books than videos. There’s very little organization to it. Most of the books by a single author are on a single shelf but that’s as organized as I’ve managed to get so far.

Details to come.

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Skook comes wandering in at 5:30 smelling of cigarettes and dope and beer. Considering that your average sasquatch is supposed to smell like rotten eggs left in the sun I suppose I should be grateful. I’m sure I’ve smelled worse myself some weekend nights back in the day.

Skook usually smells no worse than a big, big shaggy dog. He says that urban sasquatch bathe regularly to disguise their scent. In the wild it’s to a sasquatch’s advantage to smell strongly. It alerts bears to their presence and gives the bear a chance to wander somewhere else. When a bear and a sasquatch run into each other it’s expected that they’ll get into a knockabout. Tradition apparently. But it can be a painful tradition for either species so they do their best to avoid meeting each other in the first place.

That smell is also apparently considered really sexy by sasquatch at mating time. During the rest of the year it alerts individual sasquatch to each other’s presence. In season pheromones give the stench an extra something that identifies the sasquatch as male or female. Urban sasquatch go to the wild to mate.

When I ask him how his night went he just shrugs and smiles and yawns – all at once. It’s a gesture that would be really frightening if I didn’t know better. His mouth is big enough to bite down on a good sized coconut. Or a human head actually.

There’s no point asking any more details from him at that point. When he’s stoned his language skills are worse than useless. I help him roll out his futon. He yawns again and curls down on it. He’s asleep almost immediately.

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So says the National Media. I suppose in a way it’s true. Even if we leave aside the poor reporting that seeks to give Ray Wallace credit for creating Sasquatch, he apparently did create Bigfoot. “Bigfoot” first saw print in stories relating to huge tracks found in Bluff Creek, California in 1958. Wallace’s family says that he was responsible for those and many other tracks over the years.

According to Sasquatch, the Apes Among Us by John Green the first reports of Bigfoot type critters (by white men at least) dates back to 1811. There are Native American stories of such creatures dating back much earlier.

Skook just laughs at the question of whether or not he and his kin exist. That seems like such a silly question to him. Particularly coming from members of a species that invented the corporation – idea of an artificial person – and then gave it rights. Of course, Skook laughs at most things. I’m not sure whether he’s typical of Sasquatches. He’s the only one I’ve actually met.

He lives in our basement. He sleeps during the day on an old futon that he rolls out by the washing machine. He doesn’t snore thankfully. My Dad did and Skook is about twice my Dad’s size. I doubt I’d get much work done if I had to share space with a snoring Sasquatch.

Skook used to live in the garage back when we shared this house with The Bombshell and Mr. Excitement. He and our current housemate, Jaydogg, are better suited. Neither of them talks much and they both keep nocturnal hours. For Jaydogg, that’s going to bed sometime after midnight. For Skook, that’s going to bed sometime before dawn.

Usually that means Skook is going to bed when I’m getting up and asleep by the time I rouse Sarah. He’s asleep now. If I stand close I can hear a whistling as he breathes.

Bigfoot may be dead but apparently he never really existed. Sort of like a corporation.